1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to apparatus for entrapping and restraining live game farm birds such as pheasants. More particularly, this invention relates to traps for humanely gathering and handling pheasants or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art the method of retrieving poultry or particularly game birds from a yard or field entailed the manual netting of the birds. While that system was designed to obtain a significant survival rate for the captured birds, this was not often enough the case. The trauma of the netting and handling proves to be too much for many birds. Moreover, when attempting to net birds within a cage, the birds strike the cage and die in their attempt to fly away. Domestic poultry seems to be much more tolerant of capture techniques and recently apparatus was described (U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,362, issued to Bowman et. al.) which provided for a scoop type of device which could be positioned on the front of a tractor for scooping the poultry into the enclosure. This scoop was designed with an enclosure member, having a bottom, sides, and rear wall, and having an open front for receiving the poultry as the scoop is moved across the ground. Once the poultry is positioned within the scope a lid is manually closed and latched. While this system may function well with domestic poultry, it is not the answer for game birds. Due to the fact that game birds scare easily and must be handled with more care, the scoop solution is no better than the common netting process.